


A Very Hawkins New Year's

by Sookiestark



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, New Year's Eve, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 09:50:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13121244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sookiestark/pseuds/Sookiestark
Summary: Jim and Joyce get together for a beer and a burger.





	A Very Hawkins New Year's

It is a rainy cold night on the second to the last night in December and Jim Hopper finds himself at Joe's Tavern. Karen Wheeler, Mike’s mother, let the boys have an all night sleep over for Dungeons and Dragons. Jane was allowed to spend the night if Nancy and Jonathan supervised. Jane even had her sleeping bag set up in Nancy’’s bedroom.

Karen seemed a little tense about the all night D&D mixed gender party, but Jim knew the kids were good kids and nothing too crazy would happen. After all, they were the kids who ran AV club and entered the science fair. They weren’t like him, smoking in middle school and fighting. 

There was some hesitation, but after that last two years, they all needed normal kid things and it seemed harmless fun. Karen Wheeler relented under Mike’s constant nagging and allowed the kids to have the party. 

He had told Jane to be good, to use her manners, and to not do anything special. Special meant anything that might make her nose bleed or anything that might raise Mike’s parents suspicion that she was not an ordinary twelve year old.

Hopper is hungry and tired. It has been a long week and a long year. He sits down and orders a burger with the fries extra crispy, with a draft beer and a shot of whiskey. Hopper is waiting for someone and wonders if he should order her some food. He decides against it, entirely unsure what she would like to eat. He is on his second beer when she opens the door. 

Joyce Byers has a Christmas sweater on and a pair of jeans. In the red, blue, and green christmas lights, decorating the bar, he remembers her with christmas lights strewn around her like a long scarf, desperate, fearfully, a caricature of a crazy lady. Still, she was heart achingly beautiful, even wild with fear and grief.

Joyce smiles when she sees him, almost hesitant to come into the bar. She looks around and says hello to someone leaving who she knows from the store. He didn’t know if she would come when he asked her. She had to work late at the store and he had offered to drive Will to Mike’s house. After all, he was dropping Jane off and he wanted to see Will arrive there safely. 

Hopper didn’t really expect her to come when he offered to buy her a beer and a burger. She has kept herself in her house, healing and grieving for Bob. Bob, her boyfriend, the man who was going to take her away from Hawkins and be a real father to the boys. Bob, the first good guy she had dated, who they had watched get torn to pieces by monsters two months ago.

He doesn’t invite her for any particular reason, except he knows she should get out of the house. Also, there is this attraction between them. This way his body reacts to her body when she is standing near him, the way his heart will beat more quickly when he sees her. Hopper knows she feels it. He has interviewed people and seen the way people look, her eyes widen, her breathing quickens, the way she touches him constantly. 

Joyce is better than she was before and so is he. He can get through most days without liquor to the small white pills he keeps in his bathroom medicine cabinet. Nights are harder but Jane helps things. Jane helps him sleep. Knowing Jane is there makes him better.

 

Hopper understands Joyce’s madness and her grief. He remembers what it was to think the one thing that anchored him in the world was lost. He remembered watching his world wash away in the afterstorm of Sarah’s death. He even remembered the secret joy he felt at watching it all destruct. How could he deserve happiness without Sarah breathing and living? 

He understood what Will being lost meant to her.

Sometimes, he wakes up in the middle of the night wrapped in sweat wondering where Jane is. He listens in the stillness of his house at night and tries to convince himself he is safe and so is Jane and that he is just having an anxiety attack. It can take him hours to go back to sleep. Sometimes he has to get up and check on her. There is so much that can go wrong with a child, men in black suits, men with guns and drugs, There are more insidious things, things you don’t know about until it is too late; monsters from another dimension and cancer.

He tells himself it won't happen to Jane like it did to Sarah. Night brings out all his fears nonetheless.

Because of her grief over Bob’s death and her constant anxiety of Will and his health, Hopper invited her as a friend to have a drink on the night before New Year’s Eve. 

They drink and eat burgers and fries dipped in ketchup. They laugh and talk about Hawkins and Jonathan’s plans for college and the new highway outside of town. There is an attraction between them and the hours go by quickly. As the clock passes ten, she says she should get home, as Jonathan’s curfew is eleven and she wants to be there when he gets home. 

Hopper gets up and walks her to her car in the dark parking lot. The night is cold and clear. She is laughing awkwardly, her keys in one hand. There is color in her cheeks and her eyes glitter like lights on the tree. She is mumbling and flustered and clearly stalling for something.

He is a man given to bad habits and ignoring the feelings he has for her. It is a way he protects himself. It is a way he hurts himself. Now, he has Jane. He is trying to take care of himself. He is trying to heal. He has a daughter and he needs to be around for her. He is thinking about quitting smoking and eating less junk food.

Joyce needs him to be around, too. If he is being honest, he wants her around more. He knows, if he kisses her and she rejects him, that he might push her away. Hopper doesn’t ever want Joyce Byers not in his life. She is still missing Bob, and yet as he gets closer her to him, he notices she stills and leans against his jacket.

 

He understands the risk when he takes her face against his palm and says, “I guess this is good night…” 

Leaning down, he kisses her, tasting the beer and cigarettes on her lips. She kisses him back pulling at him to get closer to her. They make out like they are teenagers pushed up against frozen cars, 

She pulls back and laughs. He sees the fear in her eyes, the judgement of what people might think, She says it “I should get home.. Hmm... I mean what will people say.. The whole town will talk.” 

“Fuck what people might say. I have wanted to kiss you since I came back to Hawkins.” 

He kisses her softly, as a goodbye. If this is the last time he gets to kiss her, he wants it to be sweet. 

In a moment, he pulls away from her. “Good night Joyce. Happy New Year’s.”

“Good night, Hop.”

He gets in his truck and watches her start her car. It is an old habit his father taught him, wait and make sure her car starts and she doesn't need help. Joyce is in her running car for about a minute, until he starts to think there might be something wrong with her car. 

She gets out of the car and comes to his window. He rolls it down so they can speak. “Do you want to come back to my house for a beer? We have some time before Jonathan comes back..”

“Yes.”

When he gets there, she unlocks the door, apologizing for the mess the house is in. He follows her in the kitchen to get a beer. She stops in the living room to turn on the radio. The radio is playing Christmas Oldies. When she is in the doorway, she stops and reaches for him to kiss her. He obliges, leaning her against the doorway. 

When they pull away from each other, she is breathless and says, “My room.” 

He kisses her again, letting his tongue explore her mouth, her lips. He is so much bigger than she is. He lifts her up, one hand on her back, the other on her ass. She is so light. Like a bird, her bones must be hollow.

She is kissing him and he is carrying her awkwardly down the hallway, hoping he doesn’t trip and hurt them. One of her hands is in his hair. Her arm is wrapped around his neck.

Her bedroom door is open and when he gets through the threshold, he puts her back on her feet. She pulls her t-shirt off . Beneath is a faded white bra, the kind women wear everyday, the kind he knows she wasn’t expecting him to take off her. He does it seamlessly and her small breasts are in his hands.   
She keeps apologizing for the mess, for her hair, for the fact she did not shave her legs. He doesn't care about that. There will be time later, months from now, to bitch about the condition of the house or how expensive the heating bill is or to grumble how shitty his day at work was. 

Right now he wants to feel how good she feels.

He could care less if she shaved her legs and he kinda liked the way her hair looked just down, unstyled and loose. He had been with girls whose hair was stiff with aqua net and smelled like Love Baby soft perfume they bought at the drugstore. He didn't want that. He had been with girls younger untouched by grief and he didn't want that.

There is a hunger and a loneliness, a bitter, deep well, and sometimes when he looks her in the eyes, he thinks she might be enough to help him put a cover over it.. He will never be able to fill it not with drugs or booze or sex or work or her. But maybe, she could help him put a lid on it, while he works on building a life for him and Jane. Maybe Joyce and her boys could be part of the life he builds. 

She is wiggling out of her jeans. When she stands back up, he takes one of her breasts and puts the tip of her nipple in his mouth. She arches her body against him. 

He wants to taste her. He wants to feel her rub against him and break like a seal.. He wants to feel her small body tighten against him. He pushes her on the bed and pulls his clothes off, except his briefs because he doesn’t want to seem like he isn’t giving her a choice. She smiles at him shyly. 

“We don't have to?” He says reminding her.

He sees her doubts and her grief over Bob and her desire to be touched and held by him. Hopper who knows the story already and believes it. Hopper who went into the upside down twice, once to save Will and once to save the world. 

She says.. “I know we don’t have to, but I need you. Please come here ..”

He slides against her in bed and he kisses her as she helps him take off the last piece of clothing.   
Later in the darkness, he hears the radio playing Presley, singing about a blue Christmas. He holds her against his chest. Her heart beat is slowing, as is his. In the dark, it is sleeting outside. 

Perhaps, it will be a good New Year, after all.


End file.
